So What Happens After the Bye?
It would seem that the 20-12 win over the Bungholes has allowed Derek Anderson to keep his job for at least another week. But here are a few fun little numbers to chew on:
49.9
49.6
Know what those are? 49.9 is Anderson’s passer rating, good enough for dead last in the NFL among starting quarterbacks. And that 49.6 is his completion percentage, not last, but pretty close at next-to-last. And yet GM Phil Savage says that the Browns “are going to pull out of this and have our best football in front of us with (Anderson) as the quarterback.”
Um…what? You can’t tell me the Browns are wondering what to do here, especially with the New York Giants coming to town in two Sundays. Anderson is having a lousy – horrid, awful, etc. – season, and one has to think that the coaching staff is going to have a tight hold on Anderson’s reins. The Giants are not the Bengals; Crennel had the freedom to leave Anderson in there because losing to Cincinnasty would have been the apocalypse. That “great” fourth quarter the team had further puts them in a bind, setting up this facade that Anderson has somehow figured it all out. Let’s see how stellar his first half is under the lights in two weeks. This is by no means the beginning of my “Brady = Super Bowl” campaign, but it would appear that his time is coming sooner much rather than later. If the Giants game is the offensive debacle that it is setting itself up to be and the Browns are sitting at 1-4, about to play the upstart Washington Redskins, what harm would it do letting Brady Quinn get some sort of playing time in?
On the other hand, the best news coming from the Browns is the fact that wide receiver Donte Stallworth is looking to return for that Giants game. I have been saying that once he returns, the offense can begin to think about the notion that maybe, just maybe, they can possibly, sort of come back. Seriously though, if Anderson is going to “turn it around,” and there is no place to go but up at this point, Stallworth has to start playing.